A pair of Formula One feeder series drivers will have their first runs in F1 cars this week.

Caterham will provide its GP2 Series driver, 27-year-old Spaniard Sergio Canamasas, a chance to perform an aero test on Thursday in the Caterham CT03. That will be held in France, and he’ll be at the team’s base in Leafield earlier in the week for seat-fitting and a detailed run plan.

“Taking part in the aero test with the F1 team is another step in my development and it’s good to have the chance to help the team continue the progress they’ve made so far this year,” he told the official Formula One website.

Meanwhile Marussia is also giving one of its young drivers a shot. Tio Ellinas, a 21-year-old Greek-Cypriot, will perform a straight-line aero test at U.K.’s Kemble Airfield on Tuesday. Ellinas drives for Marussia Manor Racing in GP3.

“I have been looking forward to the young driver test since last autumn and the weeks can’t pass quickly enough,” he told the official Formula One website. “Being able to conduct the straight-line test this week will help to bridge the gap until Silverstone and will also mean I can hit the ground running there as I will already be familiar with the car systems and the team’s procedures.”

The Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires will be profiling teams, team owners and team personnel over the offseason and the first such story its done is on Pabst Racing. The Oconomowoc, Wis.-based operation captured the team championship in this year’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda series, courtesy of the efforts from its trio of Rinus VeeKay, Calvin Ming and Lucas Kohl.

MRTI’s Pabst Racing feature is below.

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When Pabst Racing took the stage at the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires season-ending awards dinner, it was the culmination of over 20 years of dedication to nurturing the careers of young racing talent, and a lifetime devoted to motorsports. Winning the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda Team Championship highlighted a season that team owner Augie Pabst describes as one of the most successful – and enjoyable – of his life.

Augie Pabst III literally grew up at the racetrack. The son of Augie Pabst Jr., a successful sports car driver and racing team owner (detailed in the autobiography Augie Pabst: Behind the Wheel), young Augie spent his youth cleaning wheels and helping his father’s team until he was old enough to begin his own racing career. He went to the Skip Barber Racing School at Sonoma Raceway, then raced SCCA Spec Racers, Shelby Can-Ams and the precursor to the current USF2000 series. He earned his two best series finishes at St. Petersburg, Fla. – a track that would later feature prominently in the team’s history.

Pabst began working on customer cars out of the team’s shop in Oconomowoc, Wis., in 1996, and at the end of the 1997 season decided to focus solely on the race team and preparation business. The team seemingly raced in every series, from IMSA Lites and Porsche GT3 Cup to vintage racing (the team still competes in vintage and SCCA events as well as tackling restoration projects on a regular basis) before turning the bulk of its focus to the open-wheel series at the inception of the Mazda Road to Indy concept.

“There are a few balls we juggle but our heart is in the Mazda Road to Indy,” said Pabst. “We came back to USF2000 in 2010 with a National Class program. Seeing where the series was heading, being aligned with INDYCAR and with the Mazda and Cooper involvement made it something we really wanted to be involved with.”

Over the years, Pabst has developed a keen eye for young talent, beginning with a then-27-year-old Tonis Kasemets in 2001 in USF2000. With Pabst as chief mechanic, the duo finished second in the 2005 Atlantic championship and the relationship continues today, with Kasemets an integral part of the team as engineer and driver coach.

The Pabst team has enjoyed success in USF2000, finishing second in the team championship in both 2015 (with Jake Eidson second in the driver’s championship) and 2016 (as Jordan Lloyd finished fourth and Yufeng Luo seventh), but 2017 saw all the pieces come together. The Pabst crew was ready to start the season with sophomore Lucas Kohl and karting and F1600 standout Calvin Ming when Augie Pabst’s phone rang, setting the wheels in motion that would add 16-year-old Dutch sensation Rinus VeeKay to the lineup.

“I got a call from his manager at the eleventh hour. I knew of Rinus but that was about it. I didn’t know what kind of talent level he had. We were going testing at Sebring prior to the series test at Homestead and he was able to join us, then he was testing with another team at Homestead. The test went really well and we could see how good he was, so I was very happy that it worked out.

“The kid is amazingly talented,” Pabst continued. “He knows how to buckle down and do what he needs to do. All three drivers worked so well together. Lucas has improved so much from his first year, and Calvin drove really well. They all have bright futures. And they all helped each other. There was always give and take – if one was quicker in a corner, they would share that, studying each other’s data and video to figure out the best way to go. That helped each one of them and I think that’s why things came together the way they did. This was the most successful and one of the most enjoyable seasons we’ve had as a team.”

First up was the season opener at St. Pete the following week, which would be the debut of the new Tatuus USF-17. Pabst Racing has a history of coming out of the gate fast, having swept the two races in each of the previous two seasons (two wins for Eidson in 2015 and a split between Lloyd and Luo last year). At the end of the weekend, anyone who had not been aware of the young Dutchman became aware in a hurry, as VeeKay earned two podium finishes in his series debut – and his first races on a street course.

“We may not have known how good he was until we tested him, but truthfully, we weren’t surprised at all by his performance at St. Pete,” said Pabst. “We didn’t think about his status as a rookie or his age; we thought he was a winner from the start. And we reacted to him that way, so maybe that was the difference. He just got down to business and focused on his driving. We were ready for the weekend, having tested and prepared fast cars. Tonis had a great set-up and convinced the drivers as such. The drivers believed in it and stuck to it and it’s worked out three years in a row, even with a new car thrown into the mix.”

VeeKay earned podium finishes at Barber and Indianapolis (with Ming earning his first podium in race two at Indy) but it wasn’t until VeeKay broke through with a vengeance at Road America that the title chase came into focus. In front of Pabst family and friends, and at their home track (only 90 minutes from the team’s shop) VeeKay swept the weekend’s two races in an emotional season highlight. With championship leader Oliver Askew finishing well back in race one, the victories also put VeeKay firmly into the championship hunt.

“Oliver had some pretty good momentum but we still thought Rinus would pick up speed in the second half of the season. I don’t know if it was home track advantage, team morale or excitement, but everything came together at Road America. It was a turning point in performance for the entire team. And for me, I was overcome with emotion after the first race. We knew we could do it, but actually doing it, and at a track that meant so much to us, was great.

“I grew up hanging on the fences at Road America. Literally, from the time I can remember, I walked every square foot. I watched IMSA GTP, Indy cars, Can-Am, from every single speck of fence there. My dad won there and I won there. And the number of hours that the guys and I spend at the shop, to go the extra mile in every possible detail, when we forget to go home for dinner or we work until 1:00 a.m., seeing him take the checkered flag made all those moments worth it. To say we’re proud is an understatement.”

The championship went down to the wire, with VeeKay finishing second by a mere seven points. He ended the season with two wins and podium finishes in all but two races. Ming added another four podiums to Kohl’s one, clinching the Team Championship for Pabst Racing. The team will continue in USF2000 and plans to expand in 2018 – an expansion Pabst hopes will include VeeKay and Ming.

“The team championship is a huge achievement and we’re very proud of that. Anyone who ever worked for our team, as mechanics or drivers or shop personnel, has contributed to this. We’ve had really good people on this team over the years to help build it to where it is now.

“Our plan is to do both USF2000 and Pro Mazda next year, and we’re in the process of putting those pieces in place. We’ll sort out drivers in the next few weeks. I’m hopeful to have Rinus and Calvin back with us as Pro Mazda drivers, but there are a lot of things in play. It’s been fun watching all three of these drivers grow over this season. We really do get the most satisfaction from working with the young drivers who are so hungry to learn. To be a part of that process on the Mazda Road to Indy is so satisfying. It’s great to be involved with a series of this stature that is still so down to earth. It’s the best of both worlds – we’re there with the big show, racing alongside the Verizon IndyCar Series, but we’re still small enough to be family-oriented. The Mazda Road to Indy is growing and evolving and it’s fun to be a part of that.”

In three years since the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires introduced its new Dallara IL-15 Mazda in 2015, the field size – and the level of top competition – has increased each season.

Kyle Kaiser is one of only two drivers who’ve been there in each of the 50 races in three years, Shelby Blackstock the other one, and is proof of what’s needed to grow into a Verizon IndyCar Series driver.

His maturation process from a crash-prone rookie to a calm, consistent and determined team leader at 21 years old, having moved from his hometown of Santa Clara, Calif. to Indianapolis, has been fascinating to watch at the top rung of the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires ladder.

That development paid dividends en route to securing this year’s title, which owed quite a bit both to timing and determination on his part along with a consistency each of his other title contenders lacked.

“That’s the crazy thing. It’s gotten higher year-on-year,” Kaiser told NBC Sports at Watkins Glen. “We have all these really strong guys coming from Europe. And we have some very strong drivers that returned, with Santi coming back after he almost won the championship last year. I think this year was a really good performance, because I wasn’t making the mistakes that cost me the title last year.”

He would know. Kaiser’s early race accidents in 2015 revealed a driver who was still a bit raw in his step up from Pro Mazda, with a notable shunt with Jack Harvey in Long Beach standing out for all the wrong reasons.

There were two podiums and sixth place in points, but Kaiser was in a clear “second tier” among drivers beyond the three primary title contenders – Harvey, Spencer Pigot, Ed Jones – and more on par with fellow rookies RC Enerson and Max Chilton. All five have since made it to IndyCar for at least a handful of starts.

Kaiser had grown enough to uphold the mantle of team leader at Juncos Racing by year two in Indy Lights. Fostered by the people around him – Ricardo Juncos as team principal and engineers Peter Dempsey and Ernie Gonella, primarily – Kaiser built the confidence to where he could become a race winner in the series.

Kaiser head of the queue in Phoenix in 2016. Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, LLC Photography

And as Indy Lights grew in 2016 where there were seven different winners, Kaiser joined that list. Domination at Phoenix followed by an emotional win on home soil at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, a track he knows intimately from his junior years, were his first two triumphs. There were still mistakes but far fewer of them, and third in points was no less than he and the team deserved.

No one in 2016 had a truly standout season. Eventual champion Jones rallied through a rough summer stretch. Santiago Urrutia, up from winning the Pro Mazda title, looked a world beater on permanent road courses but struggled mightily on ovals, and also watched as his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team disintegrated around him. Enerson, expected to be a title contender, tired of myriad team and mechanical issues and left midseason before jumping into IndyCar. Zach Veach alternated boom-and-bust results in his return to the series. The same was true for Dean Stoneman and Felix Serralles, who won races but were highly inconsistent. Felix Rosenqvist won three races on a partial schedule and probably had the most natural talent in the field, but wasn’t there to properly contend.

It was there the signs of consistency could come good for Kaiser in the grand scheme of things, and along with Urrutia, they were likely equal co-favorites for this year’s championship. And with Urrutia only racing this year on a late deal with Belardi Auto Racing with SPM, Kaiser had the team consistency in his pocket too. Having known how Juncos operates both its Pro Mazda and Indy Lights programs, Kaiser knew the team wouldn’t lose focus.

“That guy knows how to handle pressure!” Kaiser said. “He can be everywhere and take care of so much stuff to be a great team owner. Any stress he may have had in the Pro Mazda program, I haven’t had to worry about any of that in the Indy Lights program all year.”

Such was the case. Whereas Kaiser had all the elements needed to succeed in his back pocket, his six-pack of rivals all hit rough patches at various points, and so 2017 followed a similar arc as 2016.

Urrutia took time to gel with Belardi and was almost out of the title by May. Despite an eventual rally from 11th to second, he couldn’t quite overcome the deficit.

Rookies Colton Herta, Nico Jamin, Matheus Leist and Aaron Telitz all won races, but all made their fair share of rookie mistakes, bore the brunt of reliability issues or suffered from both. Zachary Claman DeMelo added a variable as an improved sophomore – a la Kaiser last year, although after bailing from Juncos and switching to Carlin – and featured enough speed and consistency worth taking notice of. Quite by contrast, Claman DeMelo’s fellow sophomore teammate at Carlin, Neil Alberico, watched his title hopes fade away by the end of May after a strong start.

Kaiser drove smart all season with the exception of Mid-Ohio, then rallied at Gateway with an ultimate statement drive to put his grasp on the title. He avoided potential pitfalls as Claman DeMelo and Jamin both spun right near him, put a deep pass on Urrutia’s outside into Turns 1 and 2 that left the Uruguayan surprised, then finished fourth to score enough points where he didn’t need any result at Watkins Glen to lock down the title.

“I wanted to get on the podium but knowing where I was, being fourth with three laps to go, I just had to bring it home,” Kaiser reflected. “That restart, I almost put it in the wall but I didn’t – I saved it! That was a season saving catch, for sure.”

It wasn’t the flashiest of seasons, but it didn’t need to be. Considering how far Kaiser has come over a four-year period, the fact it was quiet but solid all throughout the year spoke volumes of the maturation needed to become a respectable IndyCar driver. He’ll do so for at least three races courtesy of the $1 million Mazda Motorsports advancement scholarship.

Consider he has a high level of experience he already has going into IndyCar is the four years in the ladder, a similar number to a Pigot or James Hinchcliffe, for instance. He’s won once each on an oval, street course and road course. He’s become solidified in Indianapolis, where he now calls home.

And he only said he got nervous once it came to delivering his championship acceptance speech at the banquet in Watkins Glen, so that’s a sign of his steely resolve in the cockpit.

But Kaiser’s appreciation for the team that’s built him into a champion really said more than his results.

“I’ve been with the team four years now,” he said in his championship speech. “You guys saw my potential… you’re always honest with me, and your driver development program has made me the driver I am today.

“Your love for the sport and unrelenting desire to win has brought you so much success.”

With both Kaiser and Juncos Racing poised to graduate into IndyCar on a more substantive basis in 2018 – together or not – the result of this year’s Indy Lights championship is deserved fruit for both their labor.

A year after making a transition from Audi’s LMP1 program to Porsche’s in the FIA World Endurance Championship, Andre Lotterer will be on the move again to the FIA Formula E Championship for season four from 2017 to 2018 with the Techeetah team.

The three-time winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans winner is also a champion in the FIA WEC (2012), Super Formula (2011) and Super GT (2006, 2009); the 35-year-old German is one of the more successful open-wheel and sports car drivers of the generation and now takes up his latest challenge as the Formula E series continues to grow in driver talent. He’s made both one IndyCar (2002, Mexico City with Dale Coyne Racing) and Formula 1 (2014, Belgium with Caterham) start apiece.

Techeetah will welcome Lotterer in as it seeks a year of stability in its driver lineup following a roller coaster season three. Lotterer joins Jean-Eric Vergne next year. Vergne had either Ma Qing Hua, Esteban Gutierrez or Stephane Sarrazin in the second car this past year.

“I am honored and proud to join Techeetah to make my Formula E debut,” Lotterer said. “Formula E has been the most exciting motor racing series in recent years. Techeetah made a very big impression last season beating a number of manufacturer teams, and I am looking forward to working with JEV and everyone in Techeetah to start this new chapter in my racing career.”

“Jean-Eric Vergne and Andre Lotterer will form one of the strongest driver line ups in Formula E. I’m sure our two drivers will push each other to new levels of performance. Andre’s track record and experience with some of motorsport’s most significant factory teams, brings immense value as we push our own development in both the medium and long-term,” added Ivan Yim, Techeetah managing director.

“With only three test days available to us as a private team, we’ll be looking to Andre to adapt quickly to the format and car. The intent is clear; we’re putting a quick driver together with the team’s proven Renault Sport powertrain. With the all-new season 5 car on the horizon, we are confident that season 4 will assist Andre in being well prepared along with Jean-Eric to mount a solid challenge for the Championship.”

Pierre Gasly’s full-time future in Formula 1 will get determined after he first gets a chance to prove himself in a handful of races this year with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

The team has announced Tuesday morning he’ll stand in for Danii Kvyat for the “next Grands Prix,” and will make his race debut at this week’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

Gasly won last year’s GP2 championship (series now known as Formula 2) and has stayed race fresh this year racing in Japan’s Super Formula, following a similar pattern as Stoffel Vandoorne did last year before moving into a McLaren Honda race seat this season. As that series finale is the same weekend as the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Gasly will be unavailable for Toro Rosso there.

“Scuderia Toro Rosso was established by Red Bull to bring youngsters from its Junior Programme into Formula 1 and that’s what we are doing by giving Pierre this chance,” said Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost.

“He is the next in line at Red Bull for this opportunity and he has shown that he deserves it, having taken the 2016 GP2 title and this year being very competitive in the Super Formula series in Japan. He really has a valid chance of winning the title, as he is only half a point behind the leader.

“The driver switch gives us an opportunity to make a more informed decision regarding our 2018 driver choices. For a variety of reasons, some of them due to technical problems, but others being mistakes of his own making, Daniil Kvyat has not really shown his true potential so far this year, which is why we are standing him down for the next races. This will give us the opportunity to evaluate Pierre on track during a proper race weekend.”

Gasly will seek to deliver in his opportunity, paired up alongside Carlos Sainz Jr. in Sainz’s final races with Toro Rosso this year before he’s off to Renault in 2018. Thus far, Sainz outscored Kvyat 36 to 4 this season.

“I would like to thank everyone who has helped me get this chance in my motor racing career and specifically, Red Bull, Dr. Helmut Marko and Scuderia Toro Rosso…this is a great opportunity for me,” Gasly said.

“I feel as ready as I can be, having had to be prepared for anything in my role as Red Bull Racing’s third driver this year. I will do my best to perform well with Scuderia Toro Rosso during these coming races.”